So long, farewell! Adobe cuts its losses and moves on to other mobile platforms

Well, it looks like it's the end of the
road for any hopes of Adobe Flash on Apple's iPhone OS-based devices
(iPhone, iPod touch, iPad). Although Steve Jobs has long since put
his foot down regarding the matter, Adobe still held out hope that
Jobs would change his mind.

Steve Jobs poured
more salt on the wounds yesterday with an open letter that
basically said that Adobe Flash's time has come and gone. "Flash
is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they
want to push it beyond PCs," said Jobs "But the mobile era
is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards –
all areas where Flash falls short."

It appears that Adobe has gotten the
hint, and is now officially dropping its plans to push Flash Player
onto the iPhone OS platform. Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch posted
a response to Steve Jobs' rant -- Adobe's President and CEO made
comments as well -- and still feels that Adobe could provide a
"terrific experience" on the iPhone and iPad. However, the
writing is on the wall and Lynch says that Adobe is shifting its
energies to other mobile platforms.

“We have already decided to shift our
focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR,"
said Lynch. "We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all
the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including
Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.”

Lynch also said that there will be a
public preview of Flash Player 10.1 for Android devices in May and
that a full release will come the following month.

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